The Reader

He had followed her everywhere.

Not a single app she posted on escaped his notice. Every time she uploaded a new story, he was there, reading. Devouring. Loving.

He loved her.

Not the way a person loves a stranger or even the way someone loves a crush.

No, this was deeper. He loved her soul, her mind, the way she wove words together so beautifully it felt like magic.

He didn't know her name or her face, but he didn't need to. He knew her heart, and that was enough.

Her stories were like letters written just for him. Every word, every line, it felt like she was speaking directly to him.

She didn't know he existed, but he had built a world around her, a shrine of devotion that only he could see.

He knew why she had stopped posting.

He knew her well enough to understand what the silence meant. It wasn't laziness or a lack of ideas. It was heartbreak. She thought no one cared. She thought no one saw her brilliance.

She was wrong.

He saw it. He always saw it. And he loved that she didn't keep writing because she was discouraged by seeing only one view, his view. That was what made her his.

It was selfish, he knew. But he couldn't help it.

He loved that her stories belonged to him and no one else. That no one else could see how great her work was.

He loved that she didn't have a fandom or thousands of power stones or glowing comments. Because if she did, he would lose her.

But he would never lose her.

He had been her only reader for two years. Two long, wonderful years of solitude, where her words were his and his alone.

It started with a random post on Raddit. A short story buried in a sea of other amateur works.

He had clicked on it out of boredom, expecting nothing. But then he read the first sentence.

And his heart stopped.

He couldn't explain it. It wasn't just her talent, though she had plenty of that. It was the way she wrote.

Raw, emotional, vulnerable. It was like she had poured every piece of herself into those words, and he felt it all. Her joy, her pain, her hope.

She wasn't just writing stories. She was writing herself.

And he loved her for it.

He followed her to every platform after that. Gudnovel, Weganovel, Wuttpad, Wobtoon, Rudish, you name it, he was there.

Every time she posted a new story, he read it. Every time she abandoned one, he mourned it.

He knew her patterns, her habits, her tells. The way she'd start strong, full of hope, only to falter when the views didn't come.

The way she'd pour her soul into a project, only to delete it when it didn't get the attention it deserved.

And every time, he wanted to scream.

Because she didn't see what he saw. She didn't see how perfect her work was. How every sentence was a masterpiece, every paragraph a work of art.

How could she not see it?

How could the editors not see it?

Were they blind? Or just stupid?

He hated them. Hated every single one of them for making her feel like she wasn't good enough. For making her question her talent.

But even as her hope dwindled, his love for her grew stronger.

She thought she was a failure. A loser. But to him, she was everything.

He would have done anything to make her see that. To make her believe in herself the way he believed in her. But he didn't.

He stayed silent, hidden behind a screen, too afraid to break the fragile connection between them.

So he watched. And waited.

And when she posted her first chapter on Wubnovel, he saw an opportunity.

She didn't know it, but he had been waiting for this moment for years. Two long years of silent admiration, of loving her from afar.

Two years of holding back, of resisting the urge to reach out and tell her how much she meant to him.

But now, he couldn't hold back any longer.

The moment she uploaded the chapter, he read it. His heart raced as he scrolled through her words, his hands trembling with excitement. It was beautiful, as always. Perfect, as always.

And when he reached the end, he knew what he had to do.

He had waited two years to tell her what he felt. Two years to put his emotions into words.

His fingers hovered over the keyboard, trembling with anticipation.

And then he typed the words that had been burning in his heart for so long.

"Your work is beautiful."

It wasn't enough. It would never be enough. But it was all he could say.

He stared at the screen for a long moment, his heart pounding in his chest. And then, with a deep breath, he clicked "submit."

The message was sent.

For the first time in two years, he had spoken to her.

He didn't know what would happen next. Maybe she would ignore it. Maybe she would delete the story, as she had so many times before.

But he didn't care.

Because for the first time, she

would know.

She would know that someone saw her. Someone loved her.

And that was enough.